2003 TOYOTA 4RUNNER — Complaint #2093851
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about LATCHES/LOCKS/LINKAGES:ELECTRONIC LOCK/LATCH ACTUATOR filed May 21, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2093851 (ODI reference 11662305) concerns a 2003 TOYOTA 4RUNNER and was filed on May 21, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on May 20, 2025. The report was geocoded to Georgia based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as latches/locks/linkages:electronic lock/latch actuator, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same TOYOTA 4RUNNER cohort independently describe similar latches/locks/linkages:electronic lock/latch actuator failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2003 TOYOTA 4RUNNER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
My vehicle: 2003 4Runner SR5 2WD VIN: [XXX] Issue: Front driver's side door will not open. Electronic locks are operating, but the door release is not functioning. Safety Concern: What if I was in a situation where I did need to get out of the vehicle immediately? Such as a high-water incident, fire, etc. Especially for a person [XXX], as myself, this would be a big issue. When attempting to exit the car after pulling into the driveway, I could not open the driver's door. The locks would release, but the door latch would not. I had to crawl over the console to get out through the passenger side. This was not easy as I had back fusion surgery and 8 disc replaced, fused. I had to open the sunroof to help with get over and out. After I did get out, I tried the key in the driver's door, it would actuate the door locks on all doors, but the driver's side door latch would still not release. I even disconnected the battery and reconnected. No help. And after knowing more, it was not a
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2093851 |
| ODI Number | 11662305 |
| Date Filed | May 21, 2025 |
| Failure Date | May 20, 2025 |
| VIN | JTEZU14R638 |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.